Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much the Department has paid in fines to the EU since 2010.

As from financial year 2010/11 Defra has accrued £336m for disallowance following the conclusion of EU audits, broken down by financial year as shown in the table below. This relates to a number of different Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Schemes over a number of historical scheme years as disallowance is paid in arrears. These are the only fines that have been imposed on Defra by the EU since 2010.

(*) Reflects the sums the European Commission have ruled cannot be reimbursed (i.e. the amounts they have “disallowed”).